Wilkinson`s thesis is that Toronto—"a peaceable multicultural paradise"—stands as a ready reproof to
anti-immigration
"nativist" hicks (including that known
knuckledragger
Samuel Huntington, who Wilkinson elsewhere dismissesas "full of it",
and
John O`Sullivan, urbane editor ofNational Review
until William F. Buckley`s 1998 purge of immigration
patriots)

In"The Immigration
Fallacy", Wilkinson declares at the outset:

"Here is what Toronto is not:
Toronto is not dirty, dangerous, or poor. Toronto is not
a hell of
lost liberties or a babble of
cultural incoherence or a ruin of failed
institutions. Yet a popular argument against high levels
of immigration suggests it should be."

As someone who`s lived in Toronto
for over twenty years (and is now dying to leave), I
could spend the next 700 words just fisking Wilkinson`s
first sentence.

Toronto`s "not
dirty"?

Wilkinson must be recalling those
old anecdotes about
Hollywood film crews littering Toronto`s streets to
make them look more like New York`s. The Big Apple`s
trash is now a pre-Giuliani memory, but alas, that stuff
on Toronto`s sidewalks isn`t set dressing any more.

Our longhaired leftwing mayor,
David Miller, just kicked off his
annual "spring
clean up campaign" (an event we wouldn`t need if
the place wasn`t a dump). That`s when ordinary citizens
are bullied into helping"clean ravines,
sweep sidewalks, clear out illegal dumping and tackle
graffiti on bridges." That`s right:
overtaxed Torontonians are told it`s their civic
duty to
perform unionized jobs for free.

Toronto`s not
"dangerous"?

Mayor Miller`s also determined to
stop surging gun crime in the"416" (again,
a vow he wouldn`t make if the city wasn`t, well,
dangerous.)

InThe Week, Will
Wilkinson insists that Toronto has"an
Anglo-Protestant heritage asstrong as
any".
But that`s not reflected in the composite sketches we
see on the evening news, or in the names of the two
gentlemen above. Toronto`s population is now almost
fifty percent foreign-born, as Wilkinson notes, but"the most diverse
city in North America" doesn`t have a particularly
diverse criminal population.

(Few people will
say so publicly, for fear of being hauled before a“Human Rights
Commission“. After all, a
Canadian politician is still fighting a 2004 charge
of using
"racist" ink colorson a campaign brochure entitled"Stop
Indian Crime." Recently, the American Political
Science Association
announced it
was reconsidering holding its annual meeting in Toronto
this year, because"scholars visiting Toronto might face legal jeopardy if they made
controversial statements.")

A couple of
years back, Linda Frum (sister of
David Frum) conducted
interview for
Maclean`s magazine with William Bratton, the former
chief of police of New York City:

Q: So you know a little bit
about [Toronto]?
You know about our problems? A 27-per-cent increase in
the number of homicides from 1995 to today. A Boxing Day
slaying where
a 15-year-old innocent bystander was gunned down
during a gang shootout on a major shopping street….

A:Tell me, the gang violence that you are experiencing, what is the racial
or ethnic background of the gangs?

Not all crimes are violent. Local
Muslim leaders
admit that hundreds of their coreligionists are not
only polygamous, but supporting their harems on the
City`s dime. No word on when they`ll try to get
Toronto`s long-time nickname,"Hogtown,"
changed to something more halal.

The same day Wilkinson`s article
appeared online, thousands of
Toronto Tamils took to the streets in what
eventually became a four-day long demonstration that
blocked rush hour traffic and waved the
flag of a banned terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers.

That`s nothing new. Earlier this
year, I was one of about a dozen counter protesters
behind the barricades when three thousand Muslims and
their leftist supporters, many waving
Hezbollah banners, took over a major intersection to
protest the war in Gaza. A
Muslim woman yelled,"Jewish child,
you are gonna f—ing die" at the boy standing next
to me (and I have the
video to prove it), but Toronto police were
reportedly ordered not to arrest any Muslims at that
demonstration, even for uttering death threats.

Will Wilkinson says that Toronto,
the "fifth most livable city in the world," is"one of Earth`s
closest approximations of urban paradise."

I can only assume Wilkinson was
thinking fondly of visits to"Yongesterdam"—Toronto`s marijuana-friendly zone—when he wrote
those words. To those of us obliged to live in Toronto
more or less sober, such outdated Chamber of Commerce
clichés are a joke.

Or whatever the word for"joke" is in the
140 languages the City`s website proudly declares
are spoken here.